3 Effortless ways to improve memory and recall , backed by Neuroscience

I know you have heard/read a great deal of suggestions/myths/facts regarding making your memory sharp and recall things efficiently . But most memory improvement techniques- like mnemonics, chunking, and building memory palaces - involve a fair amount of effort.

So what, do you have an effortless solution?

Yes, actually I have three. So hang on, I’ll attempt to provide a more detailed insight.

 

You have an idea. A great and superb idea. A potentially life-changing idea. Well you’re feeling out of the world, you’re feeling satisfying. Nice very nice, keep it going. But wait, by the time you get the chance to write it down... you've forgotten it. Hell yeah!  What was that?

Even though it's unlikely that something you can’t recollect for in excess of a couple of hours is that significant, still: We've all had things we wanted to remember, but couldn't.

Is this really a problem?  Actually yes, that’s an issue, because where success is concerned, what you know and what you actually do with that knowledge, can make all the difference.

 

So what shall we do if we are supposed to remember something important?

 Like always science  comes to the rescue. You can try these simple ways to increase your short-term memory and recall.

Predict whether you will actually remember what you want to remember

I know it sounds pretty much odd, but wait, before you ignore this let me complete the statement. A study published in Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology (2011) shows “the simple act of asking yourself whether you will remember something significantly improves the odds that you will remember, in some cases by as much as 50 percent.”

That's especially true for remembering things you want to do, like prospective memories. Now what are these prospective memories?

“Prospective memories are a form of memory that involve remembering to perform a planned action, or recall a planned intention, at some point in the future.”

Like remembering to praise an employee, whatsapp an asked  document/image to a friend, or implement a schedule change.

How and why this works isn’t really clear. May be the act of predicting is a little like testing yourself; research shows that quizzing yourself is an extremely effective way to speed up the learning process. What seems clear is that this act helps your hippocampus better form and index those episodic memories for later access.

 

So if you want to remember to do something in the future, take a second and predict whether you will remember.

Science emphasizes that “act alone makes it more likely you will”.

Say it out loud

We've all been around people who repeat things they're learning out loud. Or just mouth the words. They look a little odd: Smart people just file knowledge away. They don't have to talk to themselves. I assume you believe the same, but this isn’t really true. Actually, smart people do talk to themselves.

A 2010 study published in the aforementioned Journal of Experimental Psychology concluded  that saying words out loud -- or just mouthing them -- makes them more distinctive.  So this act actually separates these words from the other words you are thinking. All of this makes them more memorable and easy to recollect later on.

So I think you should go ahead with this thing. When you need to remember something, say it aloud. Or at least mouth it to yourself. Your cerebral cortex will surely thank you for it.

 

Rehearse for 45 seconds

Now here comes a new term “memory consolidation”. If you’re unaware of this term, you can read about it more on the internet. For now it I will sufficiently introduce it as:

 “Memory consolidation is the process where temporary memories are transformed into more stable, long-lasting memories.”

Even though the process of memory consolidation can be sped up, but still storing a memory in a lasting way takes time.

One approach to build the chances is to practice anything you want to remember for 40 seconds. Obviously you can change these “45 seconds” to make your own rule, but should be fair enough to my calculations. A 2015 study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that a brief period of rehearsal -like replaying an event in your mind, going over what someone said in a gathering, or mentally mapping out a series of steps - makes it significantly more likely that you will remember what you rehearsed.

As the researchers compose that "brief period of rehearsal has a huge effect on our ability to remember complex, lifelike events over periods of one to two weeks. We have also linked this rehearsal effect to processing in a particular part of the brain -- the posterior cingulate."

Which should be long enough for you to actually do something with whatever you hope to remember.

Because ideas without action aren't really ideas. They're just regrets.